In preparation for the Middleton in Bloom judges, Discoverers have made a hydration station out of recycled materials for bees. They have also made bee garden stakes to attract the bees and add some decoration to our outside area.

We had a great time taking part in the Brazilian Dance workshop today. We learnt lots of new moves and really got into the carnival atmosphere. 

Discoverers Class had an amazing time today at Blackpool Zoo. We saw the sea lion show and lots of different animals. We even got to see Rusty the tiger who visited our classroom back in September. He was fit and well sunbathing in his enclosure thanks to us.  

In science we have been learning all about skeletons. We found out that humans have an endoskeleton. Our skeletons provide support, movement and protect our organs. We made a skeleton with cotton buds and labelled some of our main bones. We then looked at animal skeletons to see if they had the same main bones and compared them.

Have a fantastic week off and enjoy the sunshine.  See you when we get back for an action packed last half term.  We have our performance to look forward to, our class trip to Blackpool Zoo and an evening with the Cranmer poets as well as other fun filled activities.  I can't wait!

Happy Holidays

Mrs Howarth

In DT we have been designing and then making a cous cous salad. We wanted to make a healthy snack that was also colourful and appetising. We used lots of skills to make our salad such as snipping, chopping, slicing and mixing. We all enjoyed making our salad and then tasting our final product. Lots of the children hadn’t tried cous cous before and were surprised by how much they enjoyed it. We think that we achieved everything that we set out to do in our design brief.

What a fantastic sports week we have had! We started the week doing a wheelchair sport called Botcha, we competed in sports day and ended the week with a fun session of zumba.  We all now feel super fit!

In science we have learning all about seeds and bulbs and their differences.  We looked closely at what is inside both of them and the function of the different parts.

R.E. 
this half term we are investigating ‘What kind of world would Jesus want?’ We have explored stories from the Gospels of how Jesus chose his disciples and they became ‘fisher of men’ to spread the good news Jesus brought. This week we have thought about the role of an Evangelist in the modern day, we created wanted posters to advertise the role of an Evangelist, sharing our ideas of what skills and qualities they would need. 

We have had a fantastic week reading Harry and the Jaggedy Daggers. In maths we used the map of Bottlenose Bay to locate the coordinates of some of the places. In writing we came up with our own exciting adjectives to describe the waves and the dangerous rocks ready to write our very own ending to the story.

This half term the year 3 children are learning scooter skills in PE. Today they looked at manoeuvring the scooter safely and controlled stopping. They also got chance to try out some tricks. 

Welcome back to the Summer Term.  We will be doing lots of exciting things this term including a class performance! Look on See saw for this half term's homework grid.

I hope you all have a fantastic Easter Break.  Enjoy your time with your families and don't eat too many Easter eggs!

In art this week Discoverers Class have been looking at the American artist Charles McGee. We have created some group collages to develop our ideas in the style of his 3D collages.

The children in Discoverers Class had a fantastic time at Manchester Jewish Museum.  We had the opportunity to go in a synagogue, learnt about different Jewish festivals and holidays and even made our own Challah bread to take home. It was delicious!

Today we painted our sculptures in the style of Alberto Giacometti.  We then gave them as gifts for Mother's Day.

In PE this half term the year 3 children in Discoverers Class have been learning lots of Jag-Tag skills. Jag-Tag is a simplified tag version of American football suitable for all abilities. The children have enjoyed learning some key basic techniques of throwing, catching, evading and defending. 

In art today we covered our tin foil sculptures in salt dough and used the tools to add some features.

In maths we have been creating block graphs.  We investigated the question - What is the most popular colour Smartie in a packet? We presented our information in a block graph then interpreted the data.

in art Discoverers have been looking at the sculptures by Alberto Giscometti.  We made our own sculptures out of pipe cleaners then covered them in tin foil and moulded it around the pipe cleaners. Next week we are going to add salt dough around the figure. Watch this space...

The year 2 children have been learning scooter skills in PE this half term. The sessions are tailored to help the children feel confident to ride a scooter.

R.E. 

we have been investigating how festivals and family life show what matters to Jews this half term. We have learnt about Jewish beliefs and how these are shown in family life and festivals of Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Passover. To help us understand the importance of atonement in Yom Kippur and the Jewish ceremony of tashlich to symbolically cast off sins we created paper boats, reflecting on what we would like to say sorry drawing these onto our boats before launching these into water and watching them float away to experience feelings of forgiveness. We have experienced a Seder meal important during Passover celebrations to retell the story of the Exodus and linking the symbols of the meal to beliefs held during this festival.

In DT we have been making wind powered cars.  First we created a mood board then we made a design diagram.  We ensured that we used appropriate materials for the wheels, axels and chassis..  They all worked really well.  We loved trying them out in our outside area.

In science we looked at objects in sealed box with small holes in the top. This helped us to understand that light travels in straight lines. We found out that we see things because light travels in straight lines from a light source to an object where it is reflected into our eyes so we can see.

We had a great time doing our class assembly today all about Florence Nightingale.  Join us as we travel back in time and learn all about her life and work.  We will meet her family, the soldiers in her care and the doctors in the hospitals she transformed. We travelled back in time to learn all about her life and work.  We met her family, the soldiers in her care and the doctors in the hospitals she transformed.

We celebrated Chinese New Year by making a large dragon then learning how to do a dragon dance just like in the performances in China for the Lunar New Year celebrations.  we hope it will bring us good luck and blessings for our class community.

We loved our cakes and shakes today.  Well done Thornham!

In science our topic this half term is light. This week we have been looking at reflective and non-reflective materials.

Discoverers have had a great time celebrating Chinese New Year. We found out about the tradition of dragon dancing. When we made a giant dragon and used it to create our own dance in PE. We also made our own dragon puppets.

Music

This half term we are exploring musical story telling, this week we have created soundscapes using instruments to play alongside the story of Little Red Riding Hood. We have thought about how we can change the tempo and dynamics to represent the actions and feelings of the characters at the different points in the story. 

Welcome Back and Happy New Year!

I am really pleased to be back in Discoverers Class after my operation. It has been lovely this week working with the children and finding out about the exciting things that they got up to over the holidays.  The new Homework Grid and Spellings will now be going on an app called SeeSaw.  I will be sending you all an email with instructions on how to access this this week.  I have already set up all of the children in the class to make things easier for you but each child will be given an individual code to log in.  I will email this code alongside the instructions.  I am looking forward to an action packed half term with lots of learning and fun activities. I would also like to welcome a student teacher to Discoverers Class that will be working with the children this term - Miss Howard. 

It's great to be back! 

Mrs Howarth

R.E. 
this half term we are investigating the People of God, today we all joined in to bring the story of Noah to life, learning about how people were behaving and how this made God feel to see how His creation was being treated. We thought about what made Noah different and why God chose to save him and two of every animal during the flood. We asked lots of question about the story, thinking about how it would make us feel if we were one of the characters.

In music this half term we have been exploring dynamics by creating animal noises and expressing movement to a piece of music. We have been learning different call and response rhythms with our partners using percussion instruments. 

In maths we have been doing lots of work on partitioning and the value of each digit in a number.

In PE we have been learning how to do a chest pass and other ball skills. We then played some fun games to use the skills we have been practicing.

On fruity Friday this week we tried figs. Some of us loved them and wanted more but some of us weren’t sure. All of us tried them which was was great as she shows that we are all willing to try new things.

We had a great time in Hopwood Woods this week. We found lots of evidence that the missing tiger had been there. We found orange fur in the tress, lots of empty food packets, scratch marks on the trees and even some green fur.! We made some humane traps to try to capture the tiger for the zookeeper. They looked amazing and hoped that they would work. The next morning the zookeeper contacted Mrs Howarth to say that a combination of all of our traps had helped to successfully capture Rusty the escaped tiger. She has now transported him back safely to Blackpool Zoo. However, he is quite weak and poorly still and some of his stripes have turned green. He has not been able to return to the big  cat enclosure yet as he is being treated at the animal hospital at the zoo. We are hoping that he will make a speedy recovery so that we can go and visit him at the zoo. We would also like to adopt Rusty the tiger.

This week we had a surprise visit from a zookeeper from Blackpool Zoo. She told us that a tiger called Rusty had escaped and asked if we had seen the missing tiger. We told her that a tiger had come to our classroom and eaten lots of unhealthy things. She is now very worried that he will be poorly snd his stripes might even have turned green! We promised the zookeeper that we would do our best to help her find the tiger by making ‘LOST posters’ and going to the woods (where we think Rusty is hiding) to make some humane traps to capture him.

When we came into school on Wednesday morning we were extremely shocked to find that an extraordinary visitor had come to our classroom. It was the tiger who came to tea and he had made a terrible mess. He had eaten lots of unhealthy food such as pizza,cakes,chocolate, biscuits, crisps and bread. He had also drank all the tea in the teapot, milk, fizzy drinks and all of the water from the tap. We saw him on the security cameras in the classroom and he also left lots of muddy footprints everywhere. Where is he now?

Fruity Friday

As part of learning about healthy eating,each Friday this half term we are going to be trying a new fruit that perhaps some of the children haven’t tried before. One of our classroom expectations that the children came up with themselves was to ‘Try new things’. This week we tried passion fruit. At first we all thought that it didn’t look very appetising both on the outside and when we cut it open. We used our five senses to describe the fruit. Therefore the next thing we did was feel the fruit and smell it. We did agree that although it felt a bit strange it did smell lovely. We then tasted it. Lots of the children were surprised by the taste and loved it, others weren’t sure but what I was really pleased about was that everyone tried it. Here are some of the adjectives the children came up with to describe the taste - sour, tangy, zesty, juicy, crunchy, sweet, delicious. Look out for what we try next Friday.

Wow! What an amazing start to the term we have had in Discoverers Class. We have done lots of fun activities to help us all get to know each other and work as a team over the past 3 days. We held a Discoverers Olympics. There were five teams completing lots of activities to earn points for their Olympic team. We did a scavenger hunt, a word challenge game where the children had to find scrabble letters hidden all around our classroom and outdoor area then make as many words as they could. They earned points for making the most amount of words and for creating the longest word. We had some really impressive words. The longest was ‘beautifully’. We also did a cups game - each team had 6 cups to stack and were given string and an elastic band but weren’t allowed to touch the cups with their hands. Throughout this game all the children showed great teamwork, perseverance, patience and resilience. They never gave up and in the end were all successful! Look at the huge smiles on their faces when they completed this task. We ended the Discoverers Olympics with an activity that involved building the tallest tower out of marshmallows and spaghetti. The children found this extremely difficult but had fantastic results. All of the children have displayed all of our school values this half term and I can’t wait for the year ahead. I’m expecting great things from all of the Discoverers!

Welcome back Discoverers Class.  I hope that you have all had an amazing summer and that you are all ready for our fun year ahead.  I can't wait to see all of your smiley faces on Wednesday 4th September 2024.

I have lots of great things planned for us this year.  Please read the letter below that outlines some of the things we will be doing, class notices and expectations and what it means to be a good Discoverer.

Mrs Howarth

We had an amazing day today at Eureka. We all loved the science show that we did cslked ‘From the chew to the pop’ it was very hands on and informative.

As a treat for our fantastic performance of our class production ‘The Wonderful World of Wonks’ we had a wonkalicious chocolate day. We learnt all about how chocolate is made from the bean to the bar. Then we made our own chocolate lollies and other moulded chocolates. We ended the day with a chocolate fountain which was delicious.

Wow! What a fantastic day we had today on the inflatable. We played lots of fun games and went through as fast as we could.

In DT we have been learning all about solid structures. We found out that using a running bond makes structures stronger. We designed then made a bridge using sugar cubes. We quickly realised that we would also need a support when building the arch on the bridge. We are really pleased with our bridges that fulfilled our design brief.

We have enjoyed creating our class garden ready for Middleton in Bloom.

R.E. 
This half term we are investigating the key question; What makes some places sacred to believers? This week we have worked together to research information about a place of worship; a church, synagogue and a mosque to feedback to the rest of the class. We identified key features and wrote key words and phrases that made the holy place sacred, thinking about what sacred objects we would expect to find there and explaining why they are important. We then looked at sacred artefacts and identified which faith these were sacred to why. 

This week we have been measuring the mass of different objects in the classroom. We did this first by using the bucket balances and a standard measure. Then we used grams and kilograms and compared the mass of the different objects.

On Thursday we celebrated the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings by wearing red,white and blue. We also had a special lunch to commemorate the occasion. The children found it very interesting finding out about the significance of this historic event in World War II.

Welcome back Discoverers Class. We are in our final half term of the year and what an amazing year we have had so far! We have an action packed few weeks ahead with our production,trips,fun days and pool day to look forward to. We will continue to write on the theme of Chocolate then move on to ‘Bob the man on the Moon”. In maths we will be learning about mass, capacity end  consolidating the calculation strategies we have leant so far this year. 

We had a great time today at our teddy bears picnic. We also loved coming to school in our pyjamas!

In science we have been looking at different plants and learning about what they need to survive and stay healthy.

In English we have been reading the book 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' We all absolutely love this book.  This week we are writing a setting description for our our own imaginary chocolate room inside Will Wonka's factory.  To inspire us to generate some fantastic adjectives to describe what we can see, hear, smell, taste and feel we had our very own sensory experience. We then produced some fantastic setting descriptions.

This week we have been learning about time.  

We had a special visitor in Discoverers Class today.  The lady from SCARF and her friend Harold the giraffe told us lots of things about our bodies and our feelings. We had to help Harold and his friends and elp them to show kindness to one another.

In PE this half term we have been learning lots of hockey skills.  We love to play a game at the end of each lesson to practice our skills.

We were lucky enough to see the ducks in Explorers class today. They were very cute and cheeky. They loved it in the water.

Following on with our work based around the book Possum Magic we made Anzac biscuits this week. We have been learning all about instructions this week.  We followed the instructions to make the delicious Australian sweet treat, then we have written our own instructions.

We had a great time yesterday taking part in the sponsored bunny bounce. We enjoyed cheering each other on and trying to do as many bounces as we could in a minute. 

We loved taking part in the Greek Culture day today. In Discoverers Class we designed our own Greek Gods and did some traditional Greek dancing. We loved learning all of the moves.

Discoverers class had an amazing time at Neeli Mosque. It was a fantastic end to our RE topic on Islam. The children all knew lots about the Islamic faith and the Muslim community. We did lots of practical activities in the mosque including prayer positions and Wudu as well as having an full tour of the inside of the mosque.

R.E. 
Today we have visited St John’s Thornham church where Reverend Alison helped us to explore Holy Week. We listened to the story and added actions, making connections to how people might have been feeling at the time and how Christians feel about the story today. We explored how worship is shown in church, exploring different artefacts and linking them to the days of Holy Week and what they represent. Reverend Alison was impressed with all that we knew and the thoughtful questions we asked, she very kindly gifted us with a palm cross each which we used to recreate Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

In DT we made a hummus dip and served it with our favourite dippers. We learnt lots of new skills such as slicing, juicing, crushing and blending. The best part was tasting it afterwards. It was delicious!

In science we have been learning about forces and magnets. We made toy cars powered by magnets. We were able to use magnetic force to move the cars forwards and backwards without even touching them!

In R.E. This half term we are exploring Christianity and the concept of Salvation. We have been learning about the events of Holy Week and have worked together to retell these by ordering pictures and discussing the events and their impact on Christians today and why this story is so important that it is remembered. 

In Design technology this week we have been tasting different dips and dippers.  We then had a vote for the most popular dip so that we could decide which one we are going to design and make.  We recorded the results from our survey in a tally chart and then put them onto a block graph.  We found out that the class favourite was hummus.  Look out for us making our own hummus dip soon.

In Design Technology we have been looking at where our food comes from and seasonal fruit and vegetables. We made seasonal fruit kebabs and then sorted the vegetables according to the part of the plant that we eat.

We had a lovely surprise this week = a secret reader - Fleur”s mummy read ‘The Whale Who Wanted More’ which was about discover, love and happiness found from others not things you buy. The children loved the story and their special treat of donuts. 

Happy New Year and welcome back Discoverers Class. We have fun action packed term ahead of us..  In English we will be reading the book 'Tuesday'.  In history we will be looking at some more significant individuals such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Columbus. In Science we will be learning all about forces and magnets. 

We had a fantastic workshop today with Kapla planks. Every child in school participated in the building of a fantastic masterpiece. Discoverers Class built the crocodiles and the cruise ships. We were all extremely proud of our contribution to the showcase and displayed great team work.

Discoverers and Explorers had a special visit today from the fire brigade. The children all got to have a go at becoming fire fighters and using the hose. They were also allowed into the fire engine which was very exciting. 

Take a look at the amazing game that we designed on our TASC day for the school Christmas Everyone loved playing the game and some of the children from Discoverers’ class helped out on the stall which was great fun.

We had a very special visitor today which was amazing!

Discoverers Class loved their breakfast with the elf and enjoyed dancing and singing along to the Christmas songs too. The elf was a very good dancer!

We made our Christingles today ready for our church service.

We had a great time doing the reindeer run raising money for Springhill Hospice.

In Design Technology we have been looking at and making different types of slider mechanisms.

This week we had a special visit from the Ice Trolls who live deep in the ice caves of Antarctica. We had to become scientists in order to help them whilst they were here. Unfortunately despite the cold weather we have been having it still wasn’t cold enough for the Ice Trolls here at school. Therefore we needed to conduct a science investigation to see what material would be the best to make a special cost for the trolls to keep them frozen. We then had to make sure the test was fair. We found out that the coats made out of tinfoil worked best. 

This week we had a special visitor in Discoverers Class - A Secret Reader. The children loved listening to the story ‘Jabari Jumps’.

This week in science we did a blubber experiment. We put our hands in a blubber glove and a plain plastic bag glove. We then put our hands in iced cold water for the same amount of time and observed what happened. We found out that the hand in the glove without the blubber was icy cold and we struggled to withstand it. The hand in the rubber glove felt cosy and warm. This helped us to understand about the purpose of blubber (a thick layer of fat) for animals in the polar regions.

In art we have been looking at the artist Edgar Degas. This week we painted our own seascapes in the style of Edgar Degas, including a sunset. The finished paintings were amazing. The children really captured the movement of the sea and used great light and tone. Some even created the effect of the reflection of the sun in the water.

Music

we have been learning how to play chords together on boomwhackers and concentrating on reading the notation and knowing when to play our own notes. We have enjoyed learning to play and sing the melody to you are my sunshine.

This week in maths we have been rounding numbers to the nearest 10.

Listen to our performance of our Harvest poem.

We really enjoyed doing our class assembly today in front of our parents and the rest of the school. We hope you enjoyed finding out about all the fun things we did whilst learning all about the Stone Age.

This half term in R.E. we are learning about Islam. We have been exploring beliefs, exploring artefacts and learning about people important to Muslims. This week we have listened to a story about the Prophet Muhammad and the cat, to help us retell the story we created our own models based on the story and used these to help explain how Muslims use this story to help them understand how to respect and care for God’s creation. 

We had a great time in Hopwood woods. We travelled back in time to the Stone Age and became hunter gatherers. We made pitfall and deadfall traps to catch the Stone Age animals. Then we made our own harpoons so that we could catch fish in the stream. We were really good at using our pointy harpoons to do this.

In English this week we have been doing some drama. First of all the children acted out the part in ‘Stone Age Boy’ when the boy meets the girl from the Stone Age for the first time. We then worked in groups to create freeze frames of different parts of the story.

We have been hard at work this week creating 3 new class displays. We wrote our dreams on dream jars for our school values display. After reading the book ‘The Huge Bag of Worries’ we did some fantastic writing to go on our display in the hall. Then we made some great predictions about our new class book ‘Stonw Age Boy’. I’m sue you will agree that they look amazing.

Discoverers were set a challenge today to find letters in our classroom and outdoor area then work as a team to make as many words as they could. The longest word made by one of the groups was the nine letter word- therapist. I was amazed at all the words they came up with and the super spelling.

Wow! What an amazing first few days we have had in Discoverers Class. The children have all settled in really well and have shown great gem work and resilience in some of the fun activities we have been doing. We came up with our class rules and promises to each other, built towers out of marshmallows and cocktail sticks and had a scavenger hunt.

For the Coronation Mrs Hunter challenged all of the classes to make a crown fit for a King. Take a look at our crown and the children going down the catwalk to show the rest of the school. I’m sure you will agree that it looks fantastic!

In maths this week we have been learning all about money and how to make different amounts.

In Science we have been learning all about shadows and how they are formed. We used the shadow puppet theatres that we had made to investigate how the size of a shadow can change. 

We went outside this morning to see what we could see in the school grounds. We found a box on the field. This inspired us to write some amazing poems called “What’s Inside the Box”.

In Design and Technology we have been designing and making a wind-powered toy car. We even got chance to test them out and race them outside today. They all worked really well.

We had great fun today doing the sponsored bunny bounce!

In Geography we have been learning all about the features of a river. We made our own river models out of salt dough. We then painted them and labelled the features. We are all really proud of the finished models.

We had great fun playing with Explorers’ Class in the snow.

Music

This half term the musical genre we are focusing on is disco, we have all been feeling the groove adding disco moves and actions to help us learn our performance song ‘Bringing us together’. This is the very start of our musical disco journey but we are already having lots of fun. We have asked the children to find some more examples of disco moves to share next week so please share your best moves to be included in our final performance 💃🏼🕺🏽

We had a great day on World Boksburg Day. We wrote poems based on the poem ‘10 things found in a Wizard’s Pocket’ by Ian McMillan. We even got to have our lunch as a treat in the classroom. 

In maths this week we ended our topic on 2D and 3D shapes by using the big mat and finding the coordinates of the various shapes.

R.E.

Discoverers have been exploring the Christian belief on the Trinity. The belief in one God but also in three different ways of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They have looked at different representations of this idea using an egg and an apple.

In science we have been investigating how shadows are formed and the type of object that make the clearest shadow. We found out that opaque objects make the best shadows, translucent objects make a pale shadow but transparent objects don’t make very clear shadows at all. 

We created lots of different artwork in the style of Wassily Kandinsky this week in art. We listened to music to inspire us just like he did.

We have been continuing to explore the Samba instruments and learning to play as an ensemble. We have had to listen carefully to the leader’s whistle that instructs us how to play and anticipate when to play our instruments. We have been learning simple Samba rhythms and having lots of fun.

In art today we have been looking at the artist Leonardo de Vinci. We concentrated on the skill of sketching that we learnt about in our art masterclass last week. We found out that Leonardo da Vinci was interested in anatomy and the human form. We then used wooden mannequins to help us sketch the outline of a person.

This week we have been writing a newspaper report about the tiger in the woods. To help us do this we created a class newspaper report based on another strange creature that was spotted in the woods. We used Talk for writing to orally perform our class model piece. Use the bar code below to watch us perform it. Can you guess who the strange creature is. 

We have been learning all about Samba music and how to play different Samba instruments; samba drums, guiros, agogo bells and tambours. We have been learning to play different rhythms and anticipating when to play listening to the leader who sets the tempo of the music. 

What amazing afternoon we had in Hopwood Woods. We found evidence of the missing tiger from Blackpool Zoo in the woods. There was orange and black stripy fur in the branches of the trees and we also found a small amount of green fur. We are hoping that the tiger is not too sick and that we can catch her before all of her stripes turn green! We made humane traps in groups to hopefully lure the tiger then capture her safely so that the zookeeper can take her back to the zoo. Each group made a unique trap with lots of amazing features. Watch this space to see if they work.

We had a special visitor today. Zara the zookeeper from Blackpool Zoo told us that one of her tigers had escaped whilst being transported to London. She wanted to know if we had seen her missing tiger called Alyona. We told her that we think that Alyona came to our classroom over the weekend because when we came to school on a Monday our classroom was messed up and there were giant muddy paw prints everywhere. The zookeeper was very worried about the tiger when we said what she had eaten and thinks she may get sick. She even things her stripes may turn green! She has asked us to help her.  She wants us to make some ‘LOST’ posters. She also asked us to go to Hopwood Woods (where we think she may be hiding) to make some humane traps. She told us not to be afraid of Alyona because  she is a very friendly tiger who is probably very scared.

Today in computing we took part in the BUPA Get With the Programme completing a coding activity. We had to design and write an algorithm to get a robot to pack up healthy lunch nags in time for lunch. We had great fun doing it and faced a few challenges along the way making us re-think and debug our algorithms:

This morning when Discoverers’ came into their classroom they were shocked by what they saw. There was lots of empty food packets everywhere, an empty teapot, empty cans of Daddy”s beer and giant paw prints on the floor near the door. When they looked even closer they also found paw prints on the tables and on the side of the sink! We also couldn’t fill our water bottles because there was no water left in the taps! Immediately We all thought that it must have been the tiger. Later on Mrs Worsley in the office confirmed our suspicions by finding footage on the security cameras of the tiger caught in the act. We then wrote eye witness statements describing what we had found to inform the local police. 

First week back in Discoverers”Class

Wow what a week we have had! We have had lots of fun this week getting to know our new class. I have been really impressed with your growth mindsets and how well you have all worked in different teams. We ended the week with a scavenger hunt in the classroom and our outside area. I can see that this year you are all going to be fantastic learners. 

Welcome back Discoverers' Class!

I hope that you have all had a fantastic summer, I certainly have.  I am really looking forward to seeing yo all again on Monday morning.  We have lots of exciting thing to look forward to this term and in the year ahead.  I can't wait to see you smiley faces and hear your laughter filling my classroom. Myself, Mrs Taylor, Miss Smith and Miss Jones have been working hard to get our classroom ready for you all and planning some fun activities for us to do.  

See you all very soon

Mrs Howarth

Discoverers’ Class had an amazing day today enjoying their end of year treat on the inflatable. I don’t know who loved it more the children or Mrs Howarth! 

In Design and Technology this half term we have been learning all about structures and how to make them stable and strong. We have designed a bridge in groups using a running bond. Have a look at some of the bridges we made following our designs using sugar cubes.

We made Anzac biscuits just like the ones in Possum Magic. We worked well together to follow the instructions then after making them we wrote our own instructions.

Today in science we have been learning all about soil. Mrs Worsley gave us a problem to solve. She has been asked to plant some plants in the school grounds but she doesn’t know which area to plant them in. There are lots of different types of soil in our grounds and she needed to know which would. Be best for planting. First of all we looked closely at some soil samples to see what we could see. We found out the soil is made up of lots of different things and that without it there would be no life on planet earth. Who would have thought that soil could be so amazing, we then found out about the different layers of soil and the different types. Finally we conducted an experiment to find out which soil type was the most permeable. We found out that the clay soil was impermeable so wouldn’t be good for planting as the water did not drain well. The Sandy soil was the most permeable as nearly all the water drained through very quickly. The loam soil drained well too and it also absorbed quite a lot of the water which we thought would be good for planting as they need the water to drain well and they need to absorb a lot of water. Discoverers worked well to ensure that they carried out a fair test and record their findings.

As part of our World Book Day celebrations we took part in a whole school book swap. Discoverers Class loved choosing their new books. It was great to hear the children recommending books to each other.

We had a fantastic time in Discoverers Class on World Book Day doing lots of fun activities. Our favourite was the book tasting that we did. We looked at 3 different texts and read only a couple of. pages. We then completed a mini review in our tasting menu about our thoughts about the book and if we would like to read the rest of the book. 

In PE this half term we are doing gymnastics in one of our sessions. This week we focused on balancing and doing a pencil jump using the apparatus. 

In DT this week we prepared some dippers then tasted different dips and dippers. We created a tally chart of our favourite ones then transferred the information onto a bar chart in maths. As a class our favourite dipper was tortilla chips and our favourite dip was hummus. In our next DT lesson we are going  to create a mood board and design our own hummus dip ready to make it. We can’t wait to make our own hummus dip and hope that it tastes as good as the one we tried today.

We have been using our new world map in the corridor to locate the 7 continents and 5 oceans.

In DT we have been looking at seasonal fruit and vegetables. We then made our own fruit kebabs using seasonal fruit. The children all said that they tasted amazing!

This half term our school value is perseverance Today we discussed what perseverance was and ways that we can show it. We then played a game where the children worked with a partner. One of them had an empty cup and the other had ten mini marshmallows. The one with the marshmallows had to throw them underarm one at a time to the partner with the cup. The goal was for the children to catch them without dropping any. During the activity the children were encouraging each other and themselves and had to think of strategies to help them achieve their goal. They also were really good at celebrating each other’s successes. They found the task extremely hard but none of them gave up showing great perseverance. 

When we came into the classroom this morning we found the polar bears from our display were all frozen. They had left us a message asking us to help them. We decided that we needed to free them quickly and safely. We discussed that by heating up the ice we would be able to melt it and turn the solid ice into a liquid. We discussed what things would heat the ice up safely. In our groups we decided to try 5 different things. We used a hairdryer, the radiator, a hot water bottle, a towel and a blanket. To measure how much the ice had melted we weighed the ice blocks at 10 minute intervals. We found out that the hairdryer was the quickest method of raising the temperature of the ice so that it would melt and free the polar bears. We had lots of fun completing this experiment and recording our results.

This week we conducted a science experiment to see how polar bears keep warm. We made blubber gloves and tested how a hand in a the blubber glove felt in comparison to the hand without in iced water. To make the test fair we put both hands into the iced water for the same amount of time. We found out that the thick layer of fat called blubber acts as an insulator to keep the polar bears warm.

In science we have been learning all about rocks and soils. We made the 3 types of rock - Sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks using Starburst. 

This week Discoverer’s Class went back in time to the Stone Age. We went to the woods and became hunters and gatherers. The children made pitfall and deadfall traps to catch animal, they made their own harpoons, then they caught their own fish in the stream. We had a fantastic time and can’t wait to cook our fish on the open camp fire next week in forest school.

After reading the book Stone Age Boy we created some freeze frames of various parts in the story.

Discoverers’ Class were set the challenge of getting the hoop around their circle without letting go of each other’s hands. They came up with some great ways of moving the hoop from person to person.

As a team building exercise we made marshmallow and spaghetti towers. They raced against time in their teams to build the tallest tower. The children worked extremely hard in their groups and showed great perseverance. They created some amazing towers.

Please find attached below the homework grid for this half term.  This grid will also be posted on Showbie.  I have emailed all parents with our new class code for accessing Showbie.  If anyone has any difficulties please do not hesitate to contact me. If you would like a paper copy of the grid please ask your child to request one from me.

Wow! What a fantastic first week we have had in Discoverers Class.  It has been lovely to welcome the children old and new into our brand new classroom.  We have done lots of team challenges this week and getting to know each other activities.  I have been really impressed with how well all of the children have settled back into school.

I have attached below a welcome letter for all the parents of children in Discoverers Class.  This will tell you a little bit about what we will be doing this half term and a bit about me.  Our PE days are on Tuesday and Thursday and the children can come into school in their PE kits on these days.  The children will also be doing forest school every Wednesday so please can you ensure that your child has a pair or wellies in school labelled with their names.  Please can I also ask that you label all of your child's uniforms and PE kits with their names as we have already had a few left in the classroom with no name in.  This makes it a lot easier for your child to locate their own things.

Thank you 

Mrs Howarth

Welcome Discoverers

I hope that you have all had a lovely summer and are ready for the exciting things we have planned for this year. Our new classroom is finally ready. I have attached a couple of photographs of our new story shed and the other areas in the room. I can’t wait to welcome you all and hear your laughter and see your smiles making the room come alive.

Mrs Howarth

As part of us looking at local history we went to Tandle Hill. It was lovely to be able to go out and about again even in the rain. We has a fantastic time looking at the monuments at the top of Tandle Hill and could see our school and church clearly. We even marched around the Peterloo plaque in memory of the radicals that met there in 1819 prior to the Peterloo demonstrations.

After learning all about the Great Fire of London in history we made our own human chain to put out a chalk fire on the wall. We soon realised that this was very slow and would have been very tiring. We are thankful that we now have the fire brigade and fully equipped fire engines to put out fires.

Today in maths the children in Discoverer’s class were set a crime solving case by Greater Manchester Police. Over the weekend an unidentified intruder  stole one of the diggers from the school grounds. They sent us artist impressions of their suspects and because the police computers systems had failed the only way to uncover the identity of the thief was to solve fraction problems and use a top secret code. The children were amazing at solving the calculations and eliminating all the suspects until they were left with the culprit. At 2pm sharp the Deputy Police constable arrived at St John’s to collect all of our information. We have been informed since that Eric has been arrested and is currently awaiting sentencing! We were congratulated on our fast investigation and mathematical skills as have been honoured with a good citizens award and an extra playtime😀👮‍♀️🏅

After reading the story Paper Dolls we made our own paper dolls. We gave them names and took them on an adventure around the school before writing our own version of the story.

We have had great fun today on Number Day. This morning we worked on our sense of number and number facts. Then in the afternoon we used the map out of out literacy book - Harry and the Jaggedy Daggers to plot and locate the coordinates of the people and places in Bottlenose Bay. We ended the day with a game of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and won the Million!! We are now wondering what to spend it on.

Welcome Back

Welcome back to school Discoverer’s class. I can’t wait for us all to be back in class together again. Due to the building work our classroom looks a bit different but me and Mrs shill spent all day Friday cleaning up the dust and getting things ready in our cosy classroom. PE will now be on a Monday and Thursday so you will need to come in your PE kits on these days. Please also bring all reading books and homework books if they are at home in so that we can update them.

See you all on Monday

Mrs Howarth

Welcome Back!

I hope you have all had a lovely half-term and are well rested.  I am looking forward to seeing you all on zoom on Monday morning.  I have attached below this weeks learning grid.  This is also on showbie with all of your work.  I have been super impressed with all of the work that is being sent in and the work from the children in school.  Hopefully we will all be back in the classroom again together in a couple of weeks. so lets stay positive and we will get through the next couple of weeks just as we did last term.

See you on Zoom 

As I said on the zoom this morning I am incredibly proud of all of you for all of your positivity and hard work this half term.  You have all produced some amazing work and kept smiling on all of our zoom calls.  I hope that you and your families have a lovely half-term spending time together and having a break from school work.  I have put a grid of some activities that you can do over half term on showbie in a new folder called half term activity grid.  I have also attached this below.  This is not school work but a few ideas of things that you can do if you are struggling to think of things whilst you are at home. Hopefully we will all be back in the classroom again very soon. I would also like to thank all of the parents/carers for your continued help and support the children are very lucky and I feel that as a school we are extremely lucky too to have such wonderful children and families.

Stay Safe

Mrs Howarth

Hi Discoverers

I hope that you are all safe and well.  We have had yet another fantastic week of home learning.  I have been blown away by the standard of work that you have all been sending me this week.  Your attendance on the zoom/live lessons is also outstanding.  I found it extremely hard to choose a remote learner of the week for each year group and school learner for the children still attending school.  This was due to the quality of work from all of you and your amazing attitude.  You should all give yourselves a big pat on the back.  I would also like to thank all of your parents for their continued support.  I understand how difficult it must be for lots of you trying to juggle home schooling with working.

I have attached below the weekly timetable grids for this week.  They are also on Showbie alongside all of their work and scheduled zooms for this week. I have also added some more pictures of some of the work from this week.   

Hello Discoverers. and welcome to the first week of timetabled learning.  I am extremely impressed with how well all of you have engaged with the learning on showbie last week.  You have all sent me some great pieces of artwork for the Lowry project you completed.  Well done navigating around the app and using the various features to complete and send me your work.

Below I have attached your timetable for next week.  There is one for year 2 and one for year 3. I appreciate that it can be difficult for parents who are working to get there children to complete all of the tasks on the set days so I have left the due date open for the end of the week.  Try as much as possible to stick to the timetable that Mrs Hunter sent out so that the day is well structured with rest breaks. Try also to do some exercise each day even if it is just going for a walk.  This is good for our minds as well as our bodies 

I have released the grids on showbie now so that you can have a look at them incase you have any questions. Each piece of work will be opened up for student editing on the day specified on the timetable. I have planned Phonics/Guided Reading, Maths, Writing and a Foundation Subject to complete each day.  There is also Heartsmart, Assembles (from Mrs Hunter), French (for year 3 only) and spellings for you to access .  If you look on the class discussion I have also put a login for Oxford Owl so that you can read your reading book at least three times per week.  Please also go on TT Rockstars as often as you can.

For Phonics, you only need to do the work if you are in Blue Group (Miss Ireland and Mrs Wales' group). If you are not in this phonics group please complete the guided reading activity for the day for your specific year group. Some year 3 children will complete the year 2 Guided Reading activity.  They should know who they are.  Any queries please ask and I can direct you to the correct one for your child.  

There are separate activities for maths for the year 2 and year 3 children.  Some children in year 3 will prefer to access the year 2 maths.  They know who they are.

Parents if you have any questions please do ask. You can either phone school and I will get back to you, email or put a message on your child's account on showbie. (only I can see the individual accounts.)
Good luck to you all next week and remember I am always here if you need anything.  I am hoping to set up a zoom for the Tuesday English lesson.  I will email the details for this and put the link on showbie in the discussions thread to join.

Good Luck and stay positive

Mrs Howarth😊

Good Morning Discoverers

This is a strange time for all of us and we will have to show great resilience and stay positive once again.  We have got through this once before and we will do it again.  The remote learning will look a bit different this time and we will be sticking to a timetable much like we do in school.  Most of the learning will go on the Showbie app, there will be some live sessions and I will post weekly timetables on here.

If you haven't already please can you download the Showbie app and create a log-in for yourself following the instructions that were emailed to parents yesterday.  All of the work for the next three days is on Showbie.  We will be completing an art project on LS Lowry that will give us all a chance to get to know how to use and navigate around Showbie - as this is new to me too!  On Monday a timetable will be posted on our class blog and all of the work including video input sessions will be on Showbie for you to complete each day.  I will then comment on the work you have completed.  Good Luck with your remote learning.  I am in school all day today with the key worker children so if you have any queries please don't hesitate to contact me.

Stay positive and keep smiling

Mrs Howarth

Good Morning.  I hope you are all well.  I will be touch tomorrow about the procedures for the next few weeks.  In the meantime please can you download the Showbie app if you have not already done so and then Sign up to showbie using the instructions below.  Some of the remote learning will be put on this platform for your child to access..

Sign Up with a Username

Tap on the button that says Sign Up for Free and you’re on your way to creating your own Showbie account.

1. I’m a Student
2. Sign Up with a Username; Signing Up with Google and Other Sign-up Options are a bit different (see below)
3. Type in your account information and then tap Sign Up when you’re done. If your teacher gave you a class code already, type it in now and then tap Join Class. Don’t have a code yet? Just tap Skip and join a class later instead

Note: Remember that student accounts don’t need an email address. You can leave the Email field empty and still create an account.

Our class code is- APAZU

Merry Christmas

Wow we have all made it to the end of term!  I just wanted to say how proud I am of each and everyone of you.  You have all worked extremely hard this term and shown lots of resilience, determination and we have had lots of fun along the way.

Below is a video of our class performance of a Christmas poem that was was written by one of our very own Discoverers - Elouise.  I think you will agree with me that it is a fantastic poem.  It is both funny and heartfelt and the children though it said everything that they wanted to say.

I hope that you and your families have a lovely Christmas and New Year.  Stay safe and enjoy yourselves,  you all deserve it.  I look forward to seeing you all back in class in January.

PS I hope your turkey left over sandwiches are not TOO DISTUSTING!!!

Love Mrs Howarth

In science we conducted an experiment to see what type of crisps contained the most fat.  We looked at Baked, Kettle and Classic ready salted crisps.  We placed the crisps in the centre of a squared piece of paper then used a rolling pin, placed on top of some grease proof paper to flatten the crisps out.  When we removed the grease proof paper we looked at how many squares were translucent as this showed the amount of grease from the crisps.  We found out that the Classic crisps contained the most fat, followed by the Kettle chips and that the Baked  contained the least amount of fat with only a few squared covered in grease.

The next day we tasted the crisps to see if the amount of fat in the crisps made affected the flavour.  Dis the crisps with the most fat in taste better than the ones with less fat.  There was a mixed opinion in the class as some children preferred the crisps with less fat whilst others liked the taste of the Baked crisps better.  It was also interesting to see that the Baked crisps had far more ingredients than the other two types of crisps that only contained potatoes, sunflower oil and salt.  We all loved doing this experiment, especially the taste test at the end. 

The Spaghetti and Marshmallow Challenge!

The children were set a task in groups to make the tallest tower they could only using spaghetti and marshmallows that would stand up on its own.  This proved to be an very tricky and sticky task!  The children came up with lots of very different ideas for their towers.  The winning team produced a well thought out structure and worked extremely well together as a team.  Proving that Together Everyone Achieves More.

Fruity Friday!

As part of our knew science topic this term about being healthy each Friday will be 'Fruity Friday' in Discoverer's Class.  We will be tasting a new fruit each week that the children perhaps haven't tried before.  This week we tried a Mango.  The children had to use their 5 senses to come up with adjectives to describe the mango.  Here are some of the adjectives they came up with: firm, tangy, sweet, juicy, fizzy, squishy, green,orange, round,smooth.  I was extremely impressed that all the children tried the mango and that nearly all of them said that they really enjoyed it and would love to eat a full one again.  Look out next week for our next taste sensation!

Welcome Back Discoverers' Class!

I hope you have all had a fantastic summer and that you are looking forward to being back at school.  I certainly am as we have a very exciting term ahead full of lots of fun activities! Mrs Hill and myself have been busy getting our classroom all ready for you.  I am excited to see the year 3 children that were already in Discoverer's class and welcoming the new year 2 children into our class.  We also have two new year 3 children to welcome into our class.  Over the next two days we will be going through any changes and getting to know each other again as it has been a long time since we were all in school together.  I know that lots of you might be a bit worried about coming back to school (me and Mrs Hill are also a bit nervous), so for the first 2 weeks we will be reading some book all about ur emotions and doing lots of fun activities based on them that will help us all to deal with some of these worries or other feelings we might have at the moment or have had during this strange period in our lives. 

I will be meeting you at the main gate in the mornings as this where your parents will be dropping you off and picking you up.  Other classes will be using different entrances. School will look a little bit  different as the new building work has started. I can't wait for the the transformations especially what is planned for our new classroom.

See you all very soon

Mrs Howarth

To Discoverer's Class old and new

Words can not express how much I have missed seeing all of you together in our classroom each day. I realise this drastic change wasn’t easy, but I am extremely proud of all of you and what you have been doing at home.  I hope you have been able to spend more time with your family and have enjoyed not having to set your alarms every day!

All of you have impressed me more than you will ever know. I am proud of your flexibility, positivity and resilience during these crazy times. Although this wasn’t the ending we were expecting those children moving up to year 4 please know that I will miss you immensely and please pop your heads in to see me as you progress through the school.

I am looking forward to teaching the current year 2’s in year 3 next year and welcoming the current Year 1 children into Discoverer’s class.  Myself and Mrs Hill (who will be your TA next year) have lots of exciting things planned.

Hooray the summer holidays are here.  What exciting things will you do over the summer? I have attached a grid of summer activities for you to do over the holidays.  Those in my class next year look out for something through your doors with a summer challenge that I would like you to do before we come back to school. l will continue to miss you over the next six weeks. I hope you and your families all have a wonderful summer! You deserve it! I am looking forward to seeing you in September.

Love Mrs Howarth

Hi Discoverer's 

I am sorry that I am late writing to you all this week but I was busy in school at the beginning of the week.  On Friday and Monday we were all getting everything ready for more children coming back to school.  One of my jobs was painting lines 2 metres apart on the playground for lining up and at the school gates for drop off and pick-up just like there is at the supermarkets,  I ended up with paint all over me and Mrs Hill (who was measuring for me) forgot and stood in the paint which was very funny!!  The classrooms also look very different and we are now in our own 'Bubbles'.  On Tuesday more keyworker children came back to school and hopefully  some children from Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 will be joining us soon too.  I am hoping that I will get chance to see you too before the summer holidays.  It was lovely to see Lucinda and her mum on Friday on my way to school walking her dog.  I have also received lots of e-mails from you all this week which was lovely.  If you haven't sent an e-mail,postcard or letter yet please do.

Keep up the baking I have had some great pictures of your amazing creations this week.  They look delicious!! We have been baking again this week too.  We made chocolate chip cookies and raspberry ripple buns.  We have also had lots of BBQ's and made the most of the fantastic weather we have been having.

I hope you are all keeping well and safe and remember to send me pictures of what you have been doing at home.  Take a look below at what some of you have been up to this week.

Love  Mrs Howarth xx

Hello again Discoverers